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On Culture - In Spirit and in Truth
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On Culture - In Spirit and in Truth

Living in a world that wants spirituality, but mostly on its own terms - where can we find it? Mike and Evan Sherman talk it over.
All In Your Head by Kathryn Wingate Jeff Dobrow David Posner

(excerpts from the written piece - In Spirit and in Truth - theembassy.substack.com)

I get it. I understand the search for meaning in community, in ritual, in spiritual experience. I just think that is a search in the wrong place.

Jesus had a memorable conversation with a woman who went to a well in the middle of the day. She was a Samaritan, and the Samaritans had their own way of worshiping God. She seemed to try to justify their manner of worship to Jesus. Jesus replied that her people worshiped what they did not know.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Jesus - John 4:23-24

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. Both things. Worship is the truest of spiritual experience, but we are taught here that we don’t get to make it up. True spiritual experience that can transform, console, redeem, restore corresponds to the truth of the actual spirituality we are in. And it is practiced in the Spirit. That is capitalized to indicate Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit - a particular, unique, personal Holy Spirit. (Those are statements of doctrine - but any statement about these words is a statement of doctrine - I don’t think we ever get away from it, but that is probably a different article.)

I don’t know what comes from, using the words of Jesus “worshiping what we do not know”, but I can’t believe it is good. I am fairly certain it cannot redeem or transform in any Christian understanding of those words or be transcendent in any positive sense of that word.

I get it. I really do. But I don’t think people will find what they really need to find there. I think what people are looking for can be found on the terms that the God who is worshiped in the Spirit and in truth has given us. He wants to be found. In his grace, He may choose to appear on other places and settings, of course - he is not bound to my confines. But He does seem normally to bind Himself to the instrument He has ordained for His worship. I think that is through His people, in the community He has ordained (however mysterious or befuddling we may find that), in the church that is His body.

Links

In Spirit and in Truth - Mike Sherman - The Embassy

Leaving the Church and Being the Church - Mike Sherman - The Embassy

Having the Form, Denying the Power - Mike Sherman - The Embassy

The School of Life - Alain de Botton, Founder

Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion - Alain de Botton

Can You Find God in a Bikini? - Olivia Reingold - The Free Press

Burning Man Project - burningman.org

Religion Without Dogma? - C.S. Lewis - God in the Dock

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